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Asia Program

Events

The December 16, 2014, school massacre in Peshawar is a sobering reminder of the still-potent threat of militancy in Pakistan. Encouragingly, nongovernmental organizations have been developing grassroots initiatives to counter violent extremism. These promising efforts, however, have to this point not grown into a nationwide campaign. What does Pakistani civil society hope to achieve with its anti-extremism movement?

It is often understood that contemporary politics in the region is marked by balance of power activity that precedes an inevitable power transition when China’s power “catches up” with that of the United States. In The Struggle for Order: Hegemony, Hierarchy and Transition in Post-Cold War East Asia, however, Australian National University’s Evelyn Goh argues that U.S. hegemony has been consolidated in East Asia in spite of China’s rise, because of the crucial support of other regional states which prefer a U.S.-led order.

Efforts to fight the outbreak of Ebola have not only led to a flurry of assistance from nations worldwide, but have also highlighted the need for global cooperation in preventing and controlling pandemic outbreaks across borders. Join us to assess how Japanese and U.S. non-profit organizations and private corporations have played a key role in advancing research as well as assistance to help control outbreaks, and what can be done to improve private-public cooperation in stemming communicable diseases.

The New Silk Road Initiative, originally envisioned in 2011, seeks to promote greater regional connectivity through improved trade and transit, the development of regional energy markets, strengthened customs and border operations, and deeper people-to-people and business relationships. What is the potential for this initiative, and what concrete steps have been taken? What are the challenges and opportunities, particularly against the backdrop of the recent foreign troop withdrawal from Afghanistan? And how can the New Silk Road Initiative help benefit an Afghanistan that faces major economic challenges?

From the mountains and foothills of the Himalayas to the Terai plains, climate change is rapidly changing life in Nepal. Many communities however, are not strangers to environmental stress; for decades, rapid population growth alongside agriculture and fuelwood collection have degraded land and diminished forests.

Russia’s Far East (RFE), Northeast Asia’s geographic and strategic heartland, is crucial to an understanding of Asia-Pacific power games, and is a potential focal point of geopolitical competition. A region two-thirds the size of the United States, the RFE possesses enormous natural wealth and a vital strategic location on the north Pacific, where the interests of several major powers – China, Japan, the Koreas and the United States – intersect and interact.

President Obama used his recent trip to Asia to push through the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the centerpiece of the US rebalance to the region. The US pivot represents a significant shift in the country’s foreign policy and has generated debate in Europe as to whether it should align with Washington or adopt a more autonomous position, considering that Europe too has rebalanced toward Asia in the last decade. The focus of the European pivot both competes with and complements that of the US.

Much has been said in recent years about India’s rising global clout. Considerably less has been said about India and a different type of power: The kind that electrifies households, fires up factories, lights up buildings—and, overall, sustains nations and their economies. This event marks the launch of India Energy: The Struggle for Power, written by Raymond E. Vickery, a foremost expert on India’s energy situation.

Public opinion is playing an ever-increasing role in forging diplomatic ties, including relations between the United States and Korea. Public diplomacy between and within the two countries, and the role the media plays in shaping foreign policy will be assessed in a joint conference with Ewha Womans University and the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs.